Journal Writing Experience

After completing the writing task and experimenting with the different types of writing styles I learnt something about myself. Im a person that likes organization and structure and only really like doing a task If I see a productive outcome, so with the different writing styles I preferred the ones that were more structured and logical than more of the ones that delved into your imagination or emotions.
            I feel after using the different styles there are some that I will now incorporate into my weekly routine as I found it useful to have something down on paper of my outcome of the day and it’s something to keep a record of to see your progression.
            I liked the use of DESCRIPTION and LIST as they were quick to do and I just made a note of the key points of the day, I tend to write a lot of  ‘to do’ lists anyway so I found writing a list of my day was very simple to do.
            I also found the EVALUATION a very useful tool as I could take time to look at what worked well and what didn’t and keep a note of it for future reference. Using the GRAPHS and CHARTS I really enjoyed and got on board with, I wasn’t sure how well it would work at first but I really like it as a visual aid to see my progression in different aspects of my life over time.
            The ones that I found did not work for me were the ones which looked much more at your emotions or your imagination, I found I couldn’t really commit to writing to my full potential with the WHAT IF or ANOTHER VIEW as I couldn’t really seem to express myself that way, I can see the positives of them as they open you up to other peoples ways of thinking, but for me personally I don’t feel they work.

MY PLAN

I have decided to use the tools I have learnt from this task to progress with my own journal writing.

- I have decided to use the EVALUATION style for a weekly journal to document how I am getting on with my BAPPS program.

- the list style to make notes of key points of my day during the week that I feel I need to remember.

-the graphs and charts at the end of each month just to document my progress throughout the month and eventually the year.

ME PLC

ME PLC a term given to me by Alan Durrant, which I had never, came across before. So I decided I wanted to find out more about it, so I used my web 2.0 skills and got googling!  I found out it’s the main and popular topic at the moment of ‘making yourself a brand’

            I found a good definition of it  as ‘It's about being proactive and being able to seize opportunities as they arise. In other words identifying what your potential client (employer) needs, and how you can best provide that’

            I like the idea of ME PLC and want to look into it to make it work for me to use the method of ME PLC to expand opportunites within the dance profession.

Whilst reasearching the idea some more I came across this usefull download I thought I would share with everyone, it gives a simple guide of what ME PLC is and how you can start to use the method for yourself, looking at your strengths and weeknesses and what you can do to make yourself more employable.

 www.neln.org.uk/Enterprise%20Website/documents/meplc.doc

 Whilst beginning to fill the form in myself I realized that this is a topic I could start to critical think and reflect upon. Looking closer at how it has worked for other people and how it can work for me, what I can do to change the way I work to improve my business. The subject of ME PLC is something I am going to research on and include in my journal entry’s to find a way that I can make it work for me. Ill blog my out come in the coming weeks.

 References - Alison Ebbage The Guardian, Saturday 15 April 2000

Starting Task 2.

Again with this reader i have looked over it about three times, and know i still have not read it all fully, from reading it i have learnt that i am definitely a auditory learner, as I feel no matter how many times I read over it my mind wanders and I know I have not took it all in! which is something I feel I need to work on or develop a different way of doing it so that it works for me.

            This part of the module I have been putting of for a while I have never been the type of person to write a journal, however I have sat down today and finally put pen to paper (so to speak) and began to write something, I wouldn’t say its ground breaking but it’s the beginning of me expressing my thoughts and ideas out loud.


‘Reading this section I realize I preferred section one as there the tasks where clear straight to the point and you knew exactly what you where supposed to do, with this its much more open for interpretation to express and develop your own ideas which I struggle with doing, which for a dancer I think is quite a strange thing as most of the time people who are dancers are such expressive people within dance that it carries through to other aspects of there lives, but I guess that’s where I differ as I love to dance but I love the feeling of dancing I don’t use it to express my moods or how I feel.’

                                                                        (extract from my journal 27^th feb 2012)

Having established this is something that is new to me (similar to the world of web 2.0) I feel I need to approach it in the same way I approached the first modual taking it one step at a time so I don’t feel overwhelmed and just going at my own pace until I feel I have completed each task to my satisfaction.



I have began by answering some of the questions asked in the reader, however have put aside the critical thinking one to read over it more, here are some of my answers below;

How do you reflect on events;

I mentally reflect on things I store them in my brain until a similar situation comes along and I can apply what I have learnt to make the out come a better one, an example of this is when cleaning a dance I remember my corrections to improve the dance the next time round, however I feel I need to look at different ways of reflecting and remembering this as sometimes I don’t remember until after the event has happened so technically haven’t learnt or improved on anything and have to do it again.

At which point in Kolb‟s cycle do you feel you enter learning?

I think I enter the cycle at active experimentation, when making my blog I just logged on gave it a go and saw how far I could get, and then came back to it once I had studied other peoples and learnt more about it so have been developing it as I go a long and continue developing, im the type of person that try’s to put something together without reading the instructions first! However with my teaching work as it is something new to me and different and im slightly unsure of myself and don’t want to get it wrong I feel I have been approaching this more with reflective observation seeing what’s out there, what I like and what I don’t like and what I think would suit me and then begin to develop that.

THE PLAN

From here on I intend to continue with my journal entry’s each week and read up more on critical thinking and hopefully begin to develop it myself, as with critical thinking I feel there really is know right or wrong answers. From here I am going to move on to look at the different types of journal entries that you can do and find one that will hopefully suit me.

Task 1d.

http://www.flickr.com//photos/stephlarty/show/

So i have started task d and loaded some photos up to flickr, here are just some portfolio shots i had done with a photographer recently it shows the performance and dancer side of my work, in afew weeks i would like to add some shots of me teaching on there as that is the side of dance i am hoping to go onto.I enjoyed setting up this site as at first i was abit unsure if i wanted to post pictures i knew everyone would be able to have access to, but having looked at the different settings on the website i see that you can keep some pictures private ect, so realised its a good thing to use to have access to your pictures even if your not on your own computer. A great thing if you need to apply for a job quickley and don't have your own computer with you.
iv also added the photos as a slideshow on my blog.
whatch this space for more :)

Task 1c-youtube video

Today i finally sat down to begin the third task, to be honest its something i have been putting off for a while, iv been looking at other peoples and they all seem so interesting and imaginative, and i personally am not that creative when it comes to technology! and have never uploaded or even made a video on youtube before!
             So i decided to do it in a way that i felt i would get the most from the task. So to begin with i used the webcam tool to record my introduction. Then i began writting down my thoughts and ideas in word so that i had it in front of me as i find it easyer to work that way.Then after playing around with the moviemaker i realised i could incorporate different slides into the video, i decided to do that so that i could make use of another tool on the program and also i prefer to have information wrote in front off me.
            To finalise the video i added a picture of myself at the end,making use of another tool, and adding some music over the top off it. The song i choose talks about not giving up even though you may be feeling at your lowest. Which i think fits well with the course, because even if we are struggling with something, keep ploughing on and we'll all get there in the end!
          Its not a work of art, but it gets my point across and introducted me to a tool i have never used before. Im sure i can improve on it over time! :)

Task 1B cont-My use of web 2.0

After looking at the reader for a final time I began to understand more about it and Tim O’ Reilly’s meme. I began to think about how I can broaden my usage of web 2.0 and how I can fully use it to my advantage.

            I began with you tube as I already have a you tube account that I uploaded my show reel on, however I kept it private and only sent it to employers that requested to see it. However now I am seeing the advantages of having it viewable to all public, it could create different network links I would never have thought about and promote me in different ways I didn’t think about.

            An example of this is a photo shoot I did a few weeks ago with an up and coming photographer (David Duffy) He wanted to use the material he had taken to promote his photography by sending it to different clients or allowing it to be viewed on his website. Instead of just creating a collection of photos in a folder he created a slideshow to music and posted it on you tube. As shown below, giving a collection of photographs a different feel and making them stand out. This has been good for my promotion as its something that I can have as well as my show reel which shows me in a different light and still shows my ability.

As well as you tube I began to look at web 2.0 sites that I haven’t used or heard of before. Delicious was one that caught my eye, as I found it a great idea to have access to your bookmarks even when you are not on your own computer and have access to other peoples to share there ideas and thoughts. So I set up a delicious account, which is;

http://delicious.com/stephl

Here I linked my current bookmarks and also thought about some new websites of interest to me that I could link. I decided to look at the BBC ‘Share Take Care Campaign’ website again and on there I actually found an active blog to do with the campaign which I have linked to my delicious which is more use of web 2.0.

Task 1B

After having read the reader 1 numerous times, I thought it was time I wrote down some of my thoughts and ideas on it to share and discuss with people. I’d never heard of the word ‘web 2.0’ before and I realized its something I virtually use everyday! I have a facebook account and often use wikipedea as a search engine and you tube to post and watch videos, all of them been great demonstrators of web 2.0

            After discovering there is so much more usage I could get out of web 2.0 I started to think how I could use it to my advantage in a professional sense. First of all I took facebook as it is a site that I visit daily, but that I feel I was not using to its full potentially. I had a facebook account very private so that I could communicate and share things with my friends. But then I thought the things I am sharing I could just do this in person with them anyway, as the only people I would want to see that information I would see on a daily basis. So I took a different approach and started a new ‘professional’ facebook account only displaying things I would want anyone and everyone to see. Using it more to network my professional self than to use as a social life!

            I also decided to do this as I have been looking at the pros and cons of web 2.0 there is a simple slideshow that if found below just looking at some of the web 2.0 sites and the pros and cons of using them.

http://www.slideshare.net/prayslide/pros-and-cons-of-web-20-tools

The pros and cons of web 2.0 is something I felt should be discussed, as I am still slightly sceptical with sharing information I know anyone could have access to, which is something I am slowly coming to terms with having read the reader I feel that used in the right way it could be a great advantage to my career.

Looking at the two sides of it is something that I have wanted to discuss after hearing about the new campaign that the bbc and radio one have started. ‘The share take care campaign’ supporting safer internet usage. A quote from the controller of the bbc can be seen below;

‘The BBC’s share take care campaign is about giving everybody the skills and knowledge to make their online activity safer and protect their reputation on the web’

Saul Nasse Controller of BBC Learning

                                                         

This is something the bbc have started after they produced a recent survey with the results seen below;

‘Forty two per cent of teenagers questioned in a new BBC survey said they or someone they knew had shared something online which they later regretted. The specially commissioned survey of 13-19 year olds for BBC radio one and BBC radio five live also suggests that nearly a third of the young people who had over – shared online believed that it had damaged their reputation .Of those who claimed to be badly affected by the experience themselves,58% said they fell out with friends and 26% said it had made them anxious and depressed.’

It just goes to show how web 2.0 is such a phenomenon now and how it has its great advantages but also used in the wrong way can have disastrous outcomes affecting peoples lives and careers.

            However having said that I feel that web 2.0 is something that I need to embrace and use to my advantage in the coming weeks, as I feel now it is not just about ‘the people you know’ in this profession. But the people you can network with and widen your range of communication. I think that web 2.0 used in a safe and sensible way can be great tool, as long as you think with the mentality of ‘am I happy with anyone viewing what I have posted’ if not don’t post it!

            So watch this space for more use of web 2.0 J

                                   

Quotes and information found on the bbc media centre website.